My plants have scales. Those bugs infested the roots, trunks, stems and leaves until they killed one plant after another in my plant room. By the end of spring it looked like I’d finally found something to beat down those scales, we’ll see for sure this next year.

But what if I was sent a large box full of plant eating bugs to a plant lover. Then the next day I sent 100 more boxes? Of course it would be obvious i had an anger problem but what about the PROBLEM I created in the box receiver’s life?
Anna’s grandmother faced this very problem; see what she and Anna do about it in Leafman Attacks: #1 Leafman, Who’s Beefman? at Amazon.com.  nancymauerman.com

I’m painting again. It’s the first thing I do in the morning before feeding my animals. This morning I stood with brush in hand so long, the cats started complaining, then the bird, then my stomach, I heard from everyone but the fish. AND by the time I shook myself free I’d hosted a spider who’d left a nice web from the right side of my forehead over my eye to  my shoulder! I think I saw him leave I hope he left me, I probably never know because now I’m writing.  nancymauerman.com

My Dad and I argued about colors. I knew there were colors out there somewhere I hadn’t seen yet but he, with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, thought he knew better. I’d been taught and retaught color concepts for years but they never stuck. So, I decided if I just added a few more colors my problems would be solved. I wasn’t looking for logic, just easy answers.
Some animals can see further into one or the other side of the spectrum than can. Do bunches of bugs say to each other, “Did you see what she’s wearing today? I wouldn’t put those 37 primary colors together!”
Perhaps in the near future we’ll improve ourselves to see more and throw artists into a tizzy when they try to apply color concepts to 27 primary colors instead of three!
In my children’s picture book, Gracie’s Grandfather Makes Trouble, the grandfather looks for easy solutions to his family problem also. He thinks there are too many snakes at his house and he has shopping problems. He thinks he’s solved both at one time  but Gracie one ups him. Curious? find this book at Amazon.com.  nancymauerman.com

These Christmas cookies are not making me fat and connectively I am not getting lazier by the day! I’m balancing Trader Joe’s Lacie’s Cookies (which I HIGHLY recommend) on a spoon to keep my quilting hands clean. I’m tieing a big pale yellow and green queen-sized quilt for charity and watch a program on the cosmology of the expanding universe.
Today’s theory states everything in our universe is constantly moving away from everything else.
Conclusion: I am moving away from myself! Every molecule of me is skittering away from every other one, SO I am getting bigger all the time. It’s not the cookies!! And I’m not really too lazy to take the boxes that my six new books came in out to the recycling can. In the last month or so I’ve published a series of four books, all comprising one story about Leafman, and a book about John, and a story about a chicken’s birthday party. each and every one of which is better than a full box of Lacie’s Cookies!

The facts are; the front door is getting farther away from my quilting stool by the minute, I’m not lazy.!  nancymauerman.com

A woman found her chicken almost dead and revived her. The woman used mouth to beak respiration, revived the bird, then brought it in the house to recover away from the cold. The chicken enjoyed watching nature programs on TV from a baby’s bed rolled into the living room. I wondering if someone could design diapers for hens who were social?  nancymauerman.com

To read an almost true story about a chicken’s birthday party see, Chickens In Birthday Suits at Amazon.

“Are you home? Joan wants me to drop off sheep.” Her husband’s thinking, “Joan publicly announces to her friends, if they visit they are NEVER to use her bathroom hand towels and she wants sheep!”
“How many?” he asked me over the phone. “Four.” I tell him and heard surprise in his voice not realizing it was panic. He and Joan lived in a small beautiful apartment with a non-fenced yard.
He could hold the sheep inside all day until Joan came home from work – NOT AN OPTION, or outside in their apartment’s yard where he’d loose a few if not all the animals. He visualized himself, bent at the waist, arms stretched wide herding sheep for hours.
The result would be exhaustion, Joan wouldn’t have sheep for what ever she’d borrowed them for, the landlord would no longer have grass, and Nancy would have lost her sheep.
I delivered cardboard sheep INSIDE Joan’s apartment but what if she’d received 101 boxes of bugs? That’s what happened to Anna’s Grandmother in part 1 of Leafman Attacks in the book called Leafman, Whose Beefman?
Now this sounds like I’m talking about two kinds of livestock plus bugs; just read the book for surprises within.  nancymauerman.com

I previously talked about gift puppies, which reminds me of the best gift I ever gave John! For two weeks before Christmas I’d pretended not to hear his emphatic “Nos” as I repeatedly talked about how wonderful dogs are, what a delightful addition to a family they’d be, and how much I missed one.
On Christmas morning as we woke I told John, “Stay here, I’ll get your gift!” and I tucked into the closet and said quietly, but in a projected voice, “There you are. Quiet, Quiet! Shhh.”
John was making bed sounds which said, “Oh, no! OH, NO! OH, NO! NOT A DOG! OH BOY, how can I pretend I’m happy!
What I brought out was a big clunky computer that I wasn’t sure he wanted. But it was a SURPRISE!  And it was a NON-DOG!!!!
As I remember every gift giving day I’ve had with John, this was the only one I recall with lip-licking giggles, so don’t look your gift-dog in the mouth because its at least a surprise.  nancymauerman.com